Bella was adopted at the age of one when tragedy ended with the death of her parents. The Cullen family took her in and raised her as normally as possible, as normally as a coven of vampires can raise a human child. One shot.

The story they told me was frightening,
but I wanted to hear it over and over again, amazed every time at how
I had survived it all. Each night I would listen to the wonders of my
miraculous escape from death, and dream about the faces that had been
engraved in my memory since I was a year old, when they found me. But
I don't need the story. I remember it all as if it were yesterday.
. . .

A young woman with a slight tan and
brown-red hair held me in front of her. There was a man beside her;
he was a cream color with curly brown hair and lines around his eyes
from smiling. They both looked at me with awed expressions.

"Oh, Charlie, look at her! She's
looking at the trees as if they're the first ones she's ever
seen!" She adjusted me so that I was cradled in her arms. The man,
Charlie, smiled a crinkly eyed smile and took my tiny hand. "This
hike was a great idea, Renee."

Renee kissed my nose and I giggled.
They started walking along a path, making all sorts of noise. This
noise fascinated me; I had never heard it before. It was a snapping
and a rustling that could only mean twigs and leaves. I marveled at
the canopy of trees above me as I listened to my parents' hike.

"Charlie, do you have any-"she
stopped short. A different noise came through the brush and
undergrowth. It was a roar, and I didn't like it. I whimpered and
Renee shushed me. They both stood very still, looking in the
direction of where the noise descended.

A big, hairy beast lumbered onto the
path. Its eyes were beady and looked at us with a glint in its eye.
It gave a roar and lumbered over to my parents. Rene squeaked and
Charlie gulped loudly. I tried to stop myself, but I started crying.
I didn't like this game, it was too scary. The beast roared again
and launched itself at my father. He cried out and put his arms out
in front of him, but the beast just bit into those anyway. It shook
its head, ripping his flesh from his bones and ripping the bones out
of their sockets. Renee screeched and started to run away from the
scene, me still in her arms. The beast ran after her.

She looked behind her and screamed
again. Her foot caught on a root and she tripped, sending me flying
in front of her. She reached out towards me with distraught torture
in her eyes. "Bella, I love you, never forget that." Her dying
words to me until the beast landed on top of her and ripped her apart
like it had my father. I was crying harder now and the beast turned
its head towards me. It started to walk over to me with a blood
thirsty glint in its eyes.

And suddenly, cold hands were wrapped
around me, which made me scream in surprise. Another figure came out
of the bush, this one just a blue of pale, glittering skin. I gasped
continuously as the figure pinned the bear down. It was a man! He had
curly brown hair, like Charlie, and his eyes were gold. He was
muscular like you wouldn't believe, and he was smiling! He was
facing a flailing ball of rage and he was smiling!

"Emmett! Hurry up; we have to get
this baby to Carlisle!" I heard a beautiful, trilling voice from
behind me, but it was twisted with rage, pain, and anxiety. I looked
up to see the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. A
honey blonde girl, also pale and glittering with golden eyes, stood
away from the scene with me in her arms. Her skin felt hard but soft
at the same time and I felt my eyes go wider. What was this beautiful
creature?

The boy named Emmett rolled his eyes
and picked up the beast. He picked it up like it was me! "Fine,
Rosalie, but I'm coming back so I can deal with Fuzzy over here
later," he retorted and threw the beast away from him. I marveled
again at him with an awestruck gaze.

Emmett finally seemed to look at me
and I was still staring at him. Rosalie looked at me too and I found
that Rosalie's gaze held more pain and hope than any emotion. I
wondered why that was but all of a sudden, we were zipping through
the forest, heading away from the path. Rosalie shielded me from the
whipping wind that should have stung her.

We came to a complete and sudden stop
and were inside of an all white room, a living room I guessed form
what my parents used to say. But, it was too spaced out, too big to
be one room. It confused my tiny brain.

Then, I let out a delighted sound and
made myself sit up in Rosalie's arms. I reached out to the side of
her and she looked the way I was reaching. A black, grand piano sat
peacefully on a raised amount of floor. Renee had had pictures of
grand pianos that she used to show me and tell me that she would get
one someday. She would play nursery rhymes on the secondhand, upright
piano she owned now, but it was her dream to get one like this.

Rosalie looked at Emmett and he was
suddenly gone, but I didn't bother to see where. I only had eyes
for the abandoned piano on the platform. Rosalie walked over to the
piano and sat on the bench. I reached towards the keys and hit a high
note. It rang through the room with musical grace and I listened to
it, perplexed. It sounded much better than my mother's.

"Rosalie, why is a human child
staring at my piano?" I froze my arm just a few inches away from a
lower key when I heard a man's voice. I turned to the sound and
cocked my head to the side. How many of these creatures were there? A
boy, but not young, stood leaning against the doorway to another
room. He had red-brown hair, like bronze, and was pale with golden
eyes, just like Emmett and Rosalie. I wanted to touch his hair and
see the color of it up close, hold his finger the way my father had
let me do. For some reason, I liked him the best out of everyone I
had seen, and that made me start to cry. The thought of my father's
hand holding mine probably hadn't been a good thing to think about.

He looked appalled by my outburst and
was suddenly in front of me. "What's wrong with her?" he asked,
cocking his head to the side. "You! You're the one who made her
cry," Rosalie snapped at him and started rocking me side to side. I
just stared at him and let the tears run silently down my cheeks.
"Edward, where's Carlisle, we have to see if she was hurt."
"What happened?" He looked anxiously at me. I liked him even more
now. I reached out and grabbed a chunk of his hair, he had leaned in
when Rosalie asked him about a Carlisle, and tugged. He didn't
wince like my father had always done, but he smiled at me like he
had. I smiled back and got another fist full of hair and examined it
with curiosity. His hair was really pretty, I concluded and let him
go free.

Rosalie huffed and glared at Edward
and he met her gaze steadily while I still watched his face. "Her
parents were killed by a bear and I don't know if she was hurt too,
so call Carlisle!" she practically growled at him before he pulled
a tiny cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number.

"Carlisle, can you come back home?
It's an emergency," he paused while Carlisle replied. "Just
bring your kit and you'll see when you get back." Another pause,
shorter this time. "Trust me, Rose is nearly out of her mind,
that's how important it is." More pauses, why couldn't he just
come?! "Okay, bye." He hung up the phone and put it back in his
pocket. "He'll be right over. In the meanwhile, I'll go tell
Alice and Jasper," he said before disappearing. I frowned and
leaned forward in Rosalie's arms, wanting to know where he had
gone. Gradually, only two seconds passed before a loud squeal was
heard and about three more seconds later a tiny girl with crazy black
hair was standing in front of me, pulling me out of Rosalie's arms.
"Oh, she's so cute!"She cradled me in her arms the way Rosalie
had done and I could nearly feel the excitement vibrating her.
"Edward? Can you hear anything?" "Like what, exactly, Alice?"
I smiled to hear his voice close by. "Like her name!" Alice said
it like it was supposed to be obvious.

There was a small pause and I took the
time to sit up and look at Edward. He looked a little bemused while
looking at the girl who held me, but then he looked at me and he
suddenly went rigid. I felt Alice turn stiff as well and I could have
sworn Rosalie did too. "Hey, what's wrong?" I heard Emmett's
voice suddenly in the room. He was now beside Rosalie and a honey
blonde boy with muscled, but not as much as Emmett, had his hands on
Alice's shoulders. "Edward?" he said, in a deep voice. "I-I
can't… hear her," everyone was even more frozen in place, now.
I huffed and whined loudly. What were they talking about!? Every head
snapped in my direction and scowled at them, wrinkling my little nose
in distaste. And they all started laughing. These people must have
bad mood swings or something.

I whined again, more like a cross
between a scream and a whine. Edward smiled at me, but I could still
see the panic and anxiety in his eyes, and that made me change my
face to where it became panicked and anxious, like his eyes had told
me to show his emotions for him. Then, something caught his eye and
he stopped smiling to look at it. A fleck of silver had crossed his
face, but I already knew what it was, and I automatically gripped it
with my hand. It was a silver necklace chain with a silver locket
heart with my name engraved in it in beautiful scrawl. Bella,
it said. On the inside was a family photo of Renee, Charlie, and I,
taken just two days before, and a small quote on one door. It said,
"To Isabella, our
Dearest daughter, who lives in our hearts forever."
Edward reached for it and I gripped it even tighter, my panic and
anxiety growing more pronounced. Was he going to take it away? I
couldn't let him do that, this was the last connection I had to
them. But my thoughts were put to rest by a calming sensation that
suddenly overcame me, making my eyelids flutter sleepily. "Thank
you, Jasper," I heard Edward say. And that's when the memory
ended.

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